“Father Sebastian!” screamed Stone while still banging at the door. Another light went on inside the house, and Stone felt another tingle throughout his entire spine. Stone stepped back to kick the door down, but then it opened. Father Sebastian was standing before him, looking drowsy. He was wearing a blue night cap.
“What is the meaning of this?!” he yelled.
Stone was flabbergasted.
“I don’t understand… I... I don't.”
“What is there to understand!? It’s God knows what in the morning, and--”
“Oh no,” said Stone. For a moment he was put into Eckleburg's head, and he knew exactly what was happening. “No, no, no, no, no…” he said, immediately running back down the street from where he had come.
CHAPTER 7
The two men were sitting down when the young accountant walked into the office. The sun shone in through the window from the naked back alley, reflecting down on the dark table. The young accountant was very jittery in his movements, and it was hard to distinguish his congenital jitteriness from what was added out of pure nervousness. He wore square glasses that were pinched firmly onto his face.
“Please sit down,” said one of the men, but before the accountant did so, he was very insistent on giving both of the men a handshake.
“Thomas J. Eckleburg,” he presented himself.
“Noah Stone.”
“De Gracy.”
A short lived silence followed, whereafter the young Eckleburg sat down. He nodded politely at them.
“I understand that you need an accountant?”
“Well, yes, you could say that,” said Stone. De Gracy leaned back and seemed determined to stay quiet. “We’re looking for someone with a flair for numbers, you know? Some genie to keep us up with all the books.”
“I’m good with that. I brought all my documents, and--”
“We don’t care about that too much,” said Stone. “None of us here have got credentials anyway, so it wouldn’t be fair for you to show us yours.”
“But I’ve been to school.”
“I see that.”
“I did really well, and--”
Stone chuckled. “You’re pretty young, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No, no, no... Stone, please. I’m just saying that your school won’t matter here. You good with paper?”
“Yes.”
“And numbers?”
“Yes, that too, but--”
“Then you’re perfect for this place.”
“But what about the other applicants, I mean, there must be others for the job.”
“This ain’t the applicant kind of place,” said De Gracy. Stone popped a surprised expression and pointed at De Gracy with his thumb.
“You made him talk!” Stone laughed. “That’s an even better sign, better than any fancy degree you could ever imagine. So, summing up, you’re good with paper, numbers, and you’re already sitting at your desk.”
“Isn’t this your office?”
“Well, it’s everyone’s office, really. Only one here.”
“This done now?” asked De Gracy, pointing at the door. Eckleburg looked mortified.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Stone, waving him out. De Gracy nodded and left the room, closing the door after himself. Eckleburg kept quiet.
“I swear he has ants for blood,” said Stone. “Don’t look so nervous, though. You’ll do fine. Even if you mess up, none of us are gonna notice.” Stone smiled. He opened the upper drawer on his side of the desk and rolled down a whole stack of pencils towards Eckleburg. “That should keep you going the next couple of years.” Some of the pencils rolled off the table, and when Eckleburg tried to recklessly catch them all at once, he accidentally dropped his glasses on the floor, stepping on them.
“Oh no,” he said, crouching down by the frames of his glasses. “Oh, no, no, no.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Stone “Jesus, I'm so sorry.”
“They were a gift from my father,” said Eckleburg. He tried picking them up, but some of the glass shattered into smaller pieces as he touched it. Stone crouched down beside him.
“They look pretty thick,” he noticed.
“They are.”
Stone got up and opened another drawer. He pulled out a pair of glasses that were almost completely round, with a frame that was as thin as wire.
“You should try these on,” he said. “I once knew someone that had as bad sight as you. Maybe they’ll fit.”
Eckleburg gasped. He picked up the rest of his own shattered glasses and put them on the table. Stone handed him the other pair, and Eckleburg tried them on.
“It’s amazing,” he laughed. I think they’re better than the other ones! What luck!”
Stone smiled. “Another sign that you’re supposed to work with us.”
“It truly is. Thank God!”
“No no,” joked Stone. “Thank me. Not everything’s due to the big guy.”
Eckleburg looked at Stone with a look of sincere gratitude.
“You might be right,” he said. “You just might be right.”
CHAPTER 8
Stone was running down the dark street against the rain that flailed towards him, his coat waving with the wind. The rain whipped into Stone’s eyes, and he had a hard time keeping them open, but he knew that he was getting close. His spine was electric with nerves, ricocheting impulses to every part of his body, forcing him on through the weather and the splash of street lights. His hat flew off, and he turned around and saw it float away, but continued to run towards Eckleburg’s house, and then, like a sound of thunder through the rain, he heard the first gunshot.
“No,” he said to himself. He sprinted down the sidewalk and past the many gates and along all the fences, and he was still two houses away when he heard the second gunshot. “No, no, no,” he screamed through his teeth, clenching his fists on each side of his body. He jumped the last fence and rushed in through the front door, and there, finally, he saw him. Eckleburg was wet from blood and rain, sitting on the floor.
“Thomas,” whispered Stone, mortified. Eckleburg looked like a smeared painting, his edges washed out and his color spilling out into the room around him.
The gun lay by Eckleburg’s side. It was smoking and there was a heavy smell of gunpowder in the air. Stone noticed a head of blonde hair next to the armchair, blood still pouring from the strands, spreading out in a puddle that moved towards where Eckleburg was sitting. Stone took one step forward, but then Eckleburg grabbed the gun.
“The police, Thomas. Someone’s bound to have called the police.”
“I don’t care,” muttered Eckleburg.
“If they see you like--”
“I don’t care!” he screamed, the stinging echo of his shriveled voice lingering.
“You don’t have to care, just put the gun down.”
Eckleburg was shaking his head.
“Where’s the kid, Thomas, hm?” Where’s--”
“The kids? The kids are dead, Stone.”
“No, I mean Isaac, where is he?”
Eckleburg looked away.
“In his room,” he said. “Sleeping.”
Stone walked down the hall and opened the door to Isaac’s room. Stone went closer to the bed, where the little boy’s head was sticking out from the blanket. The covers were soaked in blood.
Stone was completely still. All his muscles froze the instant he saw the dead boy. He wanted to put his hands out and carry the boy away, but he knew that there wasn't any time. He stormed back into the living room.
Eckleburg was now standing. His head was crooked, and his eyes darted through the broken glasses that were still somehow connected to his face. He was trembling, the gun resting in his right hand.
“What the hell have you done?!” screamed Stone. “What the hell’s the matter with you?!”
“I did it to save them, Noah,” said Eckleburg. He took a few steps towards Stone. “I wanted to rid them of their s
in.”
“What sin? What sin did the little one do to get killed?! For God’s sake!”
“He was in a filthy marriage, Noah. I couldn’t live with that. I’ve seen what God does to the sinful, and I wanted to redeem them.”
“You killed them!”
“No, I wanted to save them! And I did. They are safe now... with God. I regret what we did, Noah.”
“Listen here, Eckleburg. I don’t know what--”
“Say you regret it too.”
“Regret what?”
“Say you regret it!” screamed Eckleburg. He lifted the gun up to his own head, and Stone stepped forward.
“No, stop it now!”
“I’ve got nothing else to live for,” said Eckleburg. “I’ll join my son in heaven now, and we’ll live on. I’ll be free from the sins we did, Noah. Finally free. The water grows all around me, but it’s ok,” said Eckleburg. The raindrops dripped from his jacket, and the blood and water mixed on the floor around him. “You’re here now, Noah, my Noah, and you’ll take me with you to the arc. I’ll be free of all the sins.”
“I can’t help you,” said Stone. “Put down the god damned gun!”
“You’re the only one who can,” said Eckleburg. He pulled out a note from within his jacket. It was torn in one end, and Eckleburg was soaking it with his wet fingers. He looked at it and started reading, “…am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. Review the past for me, let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You think you can forgive like that? You think that’s how forgiveness works?!”
“The note in your hand,” cried Eckleburg. “I can see it from here.”
Stone looked at the little snip of paper that he’d carried all the way from the office. It was completely dry, shielded by his hand.
“What does it say?” asked Eckleburg.
Stone unfurled the note and looked at the three words on it.
“Read it… please.”
“I… Even I,” read Stone, looking back up at Eckleburg. “Thomas, please!”
“You, Noah… you, not me. You are the one to forgive me, Noah. It is you, even you, who will blot out my transgressions, for my sake. Review the past for me, Noah.” Eckleburg cried. “That’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted. Review the past for me like the time you gave me vision, please. I need us to argue the matter…” Eckleburg choked on his own words. He was still walking towards Stone, holding the gun to his own head. The sirens were starting to wail from down the street. “Remember in the office, Noah? Remember when we first met. Let’s argue the matter… together. Let’s argue all the matters… That’s all I ever wanted.”
“We’ll do that, Thomas, we’ll…”
“All… I ever wanted. And we never did,” Eckleburg looked down, his glasses falling off. “I'll tell the kids we're sorry.”
Stone heard the third gunshot that night, a distorting, ruining sound. He saw Eckleburg blast himself in the middle of the living room, and he was forced to watch how life was instantly snuffed from his eyes, his glasses falling to the floor and shattering, his body crumpling and folding. Stone stepped forward, but the sirens were getting closer, and he decided to skip through the living room and out the back door, where he escaped through the back garden.
CHAPTER 9
Eckleburg had been buried next to his wife and son.
Stone was alone. None of the members of the Pit had attended the funeral that week, but Stone felt a certain responsibility to visit the graves. The images of the dead Isaac Eckleburg kept flashing before his eyes. Stone felt anxious, as if he didn’t know how to say goodbye properly, because even though he’d witnessed the appalling last steps of Eckleburg’s final stand in life, he couldn’t help but wonder of the hope that must’ve still lingered in the man. Stone stepped a bit closer to the grave. The gravestone was very simple; just a rectangle made out of thick rock.
Stone tried to imagine, tried to pinpoint the exact time when the Eckleburg he knew disappeared, but he couldn’t, because no matter the situation he conjured up in his head, there was always that little shred of Eckleburg’s soul hanging awkwardly out of his pocket like a watch, even in the last minutes.
Stone took a little chrome figurine out of his inner coat pocket. It was the one that had had its legs glued back on from the knees down. Its face was too small to distinguish, but Stone had always looked at it and felt sad. He put it on top of Eckleburg’s gravestone. Stone knew it’d get stolen, but he was hoping people had enough dignity to let it stay for a while. The bells started ringing, and Stone looked up. A coup of pigeons left the towers with the ringing, and they spread in all directions. The pigeons dispersed farther and farther away, and in the end Stone couldn’t see but one of the stray pigeons, and as it, too, left into the distant horizon, Stone decided that it was getting too cold to stay out.
P A R T II
THE WRENCH
[ OCTOBER 12th – NOVEMBER 25th ]
[1928]
The boy sat next to his brother at the table. Their father was placing a potato on each of their plates. A low, crackling fire was burning in the little room. The father looked at it.
“We need mor’ wood for that,” he snarled. He looked at the boys, who were greedily eating the potato on their plate, their hands stuffed into their mouths. “You ‘ear me?”
“Yes sir!” they both said.
“’At’s good, so who of you’ll fetch some?”
The boys stayed silent.
“We won’t survive without the fire,” said the father.
The older of the boys glanced at his brother. “I’ll do it,” he said.
The father nodded without speaking further, instead taking a bite off a piece of bread. The older boy had emptied his plate and was now looking jealously at his brother, who still had a little bulk of potato to eat.
“Dad,” he said. “Could it be possible to get some more?”
The father looked at him while still chewing on a piece of bread.
“Your brother still has some,” said the father. “If you can take it from him, then you can eat it.”
CHAPTER 10
Paul Messenger was sitting on the edge of his bed. He looked at the sink in the corner of the room, and wondered why the darn thing kept dripping like something from out of hell.
“Hey, hey!” he yelled at it while rubbing his eyes. He got up and walked to the sink. He took the red monkey wrench from under it and fastened the little piece of pipe at the edge of the dripping faucet. He let the wrench fall on the floor and turned to the window by his bed. The sun wasn’t anywhere to see, but he knew that it should be somewhere; that it was only hiding. He sat back down on the bed, and he suddenly remembered why he was keeping the wrench under his sink. It lay on the floor and shone more brightly than the invisible morning sun. Messenger looked away.
The length of Messenger’s bed was almost the width of the room. The door was next to the sink and surrounded by a little pile of dirty clothes that had no dresser to belong in. A little stair of books led from the floor and up to a crooked night stand, where one book lay open. Messenger was rubbing his hands together, wondering if he should try going back to sleep. He grabbed the open book instead and glued his eyes to the lines of words that finally led him out of this world.
It was barely the brink of morning when Messenger had finally decided to put the book down and leave for the Pit. The street air was cold to his face, and the street lights were still outshining the sun. He walked under them, watching each time how his shadow moved beneath his feet; when the light was behind him, he saw his shadow stretching, and when the light was in front of him, he saw nothing but the light.
He looked to the other side of the street and saw two men. They were both wearing fedoras and coats. One of them was carrying a brick in his hand. Messenger slowed down, letting the two strangers get ahead. Not noticing Messenger, the
two men moved with an unchanged pace, continuing down the street. They turned right, like Messenger was going to. He stopped a while, letting the two strangers get a bit farther down the street. He then continued after them.
The strangers sometimes looked like they were saying something to each other, but otherwise they just walked. Messenger stopped when he could see the Pit, and he hid behind a dumpster, not because he was afraid of the two strangers, but because he didn’t want to ruin whatever intentions they might have. The two strangers stopped at the Pit and they lingered for a while, looking both ways like kids crossing a street. Then one of them threw a brick through one of the front windows, igniting an explosion of glass.
“Hey!” screamed Messenger when he saw what they’d done. They looked back at Messenger and started to run. Messenger ran after them down the street while screaming at the top of his lungs for them to stop. “You assholes! What the hell?!” He was gaining in on the shorter of the two. Messenger’s cap flew off his head just when he was about to reach for the flapping coat of the short stranger. He grabbed the coat and tugged the man to the ground, immediately pouncing him and punching his face.
“What the hell were you doing?!” roared Messenger. “Who are you?!” Messenger didn’t notice that the other stranger had stopped running.
The short stranger looked to his side and started nodding frantically while Messenger was still pounding at his face.
“Answer me!” screamed Messenger, but then a searing pain rolled through his head and down his neck, numbing his bloody fists. The short stranger pulled himself out from under the collapsing Messenger, who now fell to the sidewalk along with the same brick that had knocked him out.
When Messenger woke up, he could feel the distinct texture of the boxing ring’s leather against the tip of his fingers. Grundy was sitting on a stool next to him. Messenger tried looking at him, but the pain that scorched through his head forced him to keep it rested. He could see the smashed window from where he lay.
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